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Zayo Group Goes Public in a Turbulent Market

Overview

Zayo Group, a seven-year old Bandwidth Infrastructure company headquartered in Boulder, needed a strategic partner to help navigate the myriad of communications challenges associated with an Initial Public Offering (IPO).

Services Provided

Business/Financial Media Relations

IPO Day Media Tour

Message Development

Strategic Planning and Counsel

Challenge

The company, which manages a fiber optic network extending more than 81,500 route miles in the U.S. and Europe, would be the first telecom infrastructure company to go public since the dot com crash of the early 2000s, serving as a litmus test of investor appetite for fiber assets. What’s more, Zayo’s IPO was scheduled for October 2014 which, due to concerns over Europe’s struggling economy, lower-than-expected retail sales data and other factors, would prove to be one of the most turbulent months for the market in recent memory.

Solution

Starting well in advance of the IPO, Linhart PR collaborated with Zayo’s internal PR team to create a comprehensive and targeted plan for managing communications throughout the IPO process — from registration through listing day itself. The plan included a protocol for navigating media relations during the SEC-mandated “quiet period,” and also laid out specific media targets and storylines to garner the most positive attention possible for Zayo. Additionally, Linhart PR attended the IPO and facilitated interviews from the NYSE trading floor with Zayo CEO Dan Caruso.

Results

In addition to helping Zayo steer clear of potential SEC violations during the pre- and post-IPO quiet period, Linhart PR secured interviews with many of Zayo’s top media targets, including the Denver Business Journal, Denver Post, FOX Business, thestreet.com, Wall Street Journal and others. In total, Linhart PR generated dozens of original articles and broadcast segments on Zayo’s IPO, a majority of which positioned the offering as one of the largest and most successful tech IPOs of 2014.